Friday, December 23, 2011

More Love and Pearls of Wisdom from RadCathR Catholic Steve ("scotju" / "juscot") Dalton / Documentation of Various of His Irrational Rantings and Ravings

This is the third time this year that Michael Voris has been attacked by members of the Church hierarchy. It's obvious that RCTV is upsetting the right people. People like this bishop of a diocese on it's way to oblivion, and bitter hate-filled laymen like Mark Shea and Dave Armstrong. These folks are sooo sensitive to the feelings of heretics, radicals, and other deviants, but when it comes to the feelings and desires of those who want the church as it has always been before Vatican II, you are suddenly transformed into a critter called a 'rad-trad'. you are accused of being a Nazi, a racist, a reactionary, . . .[two spelling corrections made]

Dalton has long been a severe critic of mine. He usually shows up when geocentrism is being discussed (he believes in that, as well as young-earth creationism), and possesses quite the uncontrolled, unbridled tongue. He seems to delight in bringing up my name in a calumnious fashion at the drop of a hat.

Apparently, I am described as "bitter hate-filled" simply because I did one little old post on Voris, objecting to his trashing of Amazing Grace as supposedly a terribly heretical Protestant song, that should never ever ever be performed in a Catholic church. I noted in my post a review of Voris' enterprise from the Catholic Culture website, that monitors the orthodoxy and fidelity of websites claiming to be Catholic. It describes Voris' liturgical opinion as "Extreme antipathy to the liturgy of the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite." In my post on Amazing Grace, Dalton showed up in the combox, under the moniker "juscot."

For this unutterably wicked transgression, Dalton feels justified in publicly describing me as a "bitter hate-filled" person who supposedly (so is his strong implication by citing my name) also calls people (i.e., those who aren't such) "Nazis" (which I've never done: a thing that can be quickly verified by a search on my voluminous site). This is par for the course, in the ongoing slanderous rotgut written about me, on the Internet.

Recently, a notorious inveterate troll (on my blog and on many other sites) dredged up the ridiculous claim that I supposedly "desperately" sought to keep up a Wikipedia entry about myself, out of my alleged extreme narcissism. The truth of the matter is that I have never at any time written anything on Wikipedia about anything: no editing or writing at all there: let alone a page about myself. Someone else put one up at one time (I don't even know who that person was), and folks who made themselves my "enemies" made up this myth that I had something to do with it (following another myth that I have the most bombastic, self-inflated ego in the history of the world), and had it removed.

But getting back to Dalton, on 21 December he described my previous post as follows: "Dave Armstrong went ballistic over Voris's criticism of AG and people like me who defended it." I often observe ludicrous speculations about my supposed (imaginary, fictional) emotional or mental state being made by people who think they know all about me. This is a classic case. I challenge the reader to check out my post in order to determine whether my demeanor and tone there would lead anyone -- who didn't already have an axe to grind -- to think that I "went ballistic." If we want to see "ballistic," I submit that we ought to read some of Dalton's other ravings about myself and other Catholic apologists. For example:

Question, if Bob Sungesis [sic] is so far out on the fringe, why are people like Dave Armstrong and Dave Palm so worried about him? Why are they even paying any attention to him? Why not just ignore him? Instead, you are giving him scads of free publicity he couldn't buy at any price. With all the problems we have in the Church with queer priests corrupting young men, evolution being taught instead of creation by God, parishes closing right and left, you would think that Sungesis's [sic] critics would be far more concerned about these things than a fringee living in a small Pennsylvania town. I got some advice for some of you, don't worry about Bob, if He's wrong about geo, the Jews, the state of the Church, and other things, He'll fade away in a few years without any smear campaign that some are directing at him. If He's right, no amount of smears or ridicule is going to make him fade away. Heck, the free publicity Armstrong, Shea, Palm, and others are giving him are insuring that his ideas will become more well known with each passing day! So, Dave, Dave, Mark, and others, keep up the good work of keeping Bob in the spotlight, go after those mean anti-Catholic Prots who outrage you, because they ignore you, make every little disagreement with someone in blogland into a petty feud, ignore the bigger issues, (like the priest scandal, the liberal theology) that are destroying the faith of millions of Catholics. I'm sure your reward will be great in heaven because of all the camel swallowing and gnat straining yo'll [sic] have to do before this is all over! (3 September 2011)

To respond briefly to some of the particulars in this sustained nonsense:

1) I pay "attention" to Sungenis because I think he commits several serious errors, and the business of the apologist is to note and refute such (see many examples and critiques on my "Radical Catholic Reactionaries page: second section from the end). In other words, I am simply doing my job. I have nothing personal against Bob. We have written cordial letters back and forth on several occasions. We simply have some honest, serious disagreements.

2) It is almost certainly the case that Sungenis receives more exposure than I do: having been on TV, radio; having held several conferences, etc. He gets plenty of hits on his websites. Almost anyone who reads about his errors on my pages already knows who he is; thus I am not providing any "free publicity" to him to any significant extent. People know of him; they may not know of his serious errors that I have the unfortunate duty, as an apologist, to highlight and object to.

3) For Dalton, apparently apologetics is all (or merely) about personality disputes and "petty feud[s]", jealous wrangling. In fact, it is about the seeking and defending of truth as any individual sincerely deems that to be, in conjunction with a total obedience to the One True Church.

Considering that the LA Times, Chicago Trib and other publications are basically using Sungenis and his group to make the Church look ignorant and paranoid, I can completely understand why people like Pat Archbold and the others you mentioned are out there making it clear that most all Catholics don't give these ideas the time of day. There's a reason these big publications are giving this group national attention and it's not because they find their theories credible or fascinating. They just want groups like this to be seen by the public as the face of the Catholic Church because the more the Church is discredited and marginalized as ignorant and paranoid, the less people will consider becoming Catholic and the more the Church's voice will be muted and neutralized in the public square. And the more the Church's voice is muted and neutralized in the public square, the easier it is for the relativists to push their immoral agenda.

In another comment a year ago in the midst of the usual tempest in a teapot "discussion" regarding geocentrism, Dalton opined that my "ego" was the reason for my writing against it:

John, I really appr[ec]iate your defense of geo[centrism]. It amazes me that Armstrong will allow you to post on his site when you fire salvo after salvo into his helio[centric] ship. He doesn't seem to realize that if he wanted to really hurt you, he would ignore you completely. Instead his ego drives him to attack geo and it's defenders, even though, as Rick points out, he and his buddies are losing the debate. (12-27-10)

Again, on his own site (on 8-31-11), Dalton was insistent that my one little ol' post about Voris (out of 2522) is proof positive of "jealousy" and some sort of frenzied agenda:

The one thing, however, that saddens me to no end is the in-fighting of Catholic apologetic bloggers against Mr. Voris. It is almost a jealousy and as long as it exists, the great restoration to which Michael Voris refers cannot occur. This is the same problem that the Church of Corinth had so long ago when followers of Apollos would fight against followers of Cephas or Paul, or vice versa. It's wrong. We do not follow Michael Voris or Dave Armstrong or Steve Ray or Mark Shea. But when we are divided like this, we hurt the Body of Christ . . . .

Also, Mike Voris has some powerful enemies in the blogging community. The two best know[n] are Dave Armstrong and Mark Shea. Both of these men have a [sic] overwhelming hatred for Voris, especially Mark Shea. . . . Dave Armstrong has been upset with Mike since Mike suggested that Amazing Grace, being a Protestant song, doesn't reflect Catholic theology. But why do they really lash out at him?

I think it boils down to these reasons. 1. Jealousy. Armstrong and Shea have been apologists for years. They have been praised by the blogging community (and others) as the best. Now comes Michael Voris and He's getting the praises and hosannas they have been used to getting. Instead of asking themselves, what's He doing that's attracting an audience, they're smearing him with some of the words I've already mentioned. Why? They're afraid of losing their audience to someone who has a winning, winsome, personality, as opposed to their snarky ones. Both Armstrong & Shea have become increasingly meanspirited, bitter, controlling and isolated from many in their audience over the last few years. . . . it's no wonder why many Catholics are attracted to Voris and repelled by the likes of Shea & Armstrong. 2. Both Shea & Armstrong are probably being used by certain powerful members of the clergy and the laity to bring down Mike Voris.

Conspiracies abound! I supposedly have an "overwhelming hatred for Voris" because I spent all of an hour (two, max) writing one post about one opinion of his. Such absurdities are their own refutations.

John Paul the Great? The man aided and abbedded [sic] in the cover-up of queer priests by doing absolutely nothing to stop the scandal. The man also encouraged false ecumenicalism [sic] with nonsence [sic] like Assai [sic]. The rush to declare this extremely flawed individual a saint shows the extent of the spiritual and moral vacousness [sic] of the Church's clergy and laity. (4-23-11)

Dalton responded to this post as follows (with more of his ubiquitous quack psychoanalysis):

I must say, you must be very uptight and hyper-sensitive to lash out at someone who is a very minor player in the blogosphere. . . . I don't try to reason with people like you who are emotionally bent out of shape.

As explained in the post itself, I wrote the post in order to expose Dalton's errors and outright imaginary fictions about my interior states of mind and heart as the ridiculous things that they are. Period.

Now it is one post out of 2523 devoted to him. I suppose that is proof that I am "obsessed" about him now, and hate-filled, etc., according to his mentality and yours.

Then ban him, Mr. Armstrong. Or simply ignore him. In this case, however, I agree with Scotju's comment at my blog. I don't always agree with him, but I share his frustration at the infection and infestation of liberalism in the Church. I can't wait till it's stamped out.

BTW, I am proud to share a mentality with him that you despise. It pleases me no end. I am sick and tired of self-appointed blogger-apologists who think they are God's gift of intellect to the internet, and how dare anyone disagree with them. Yes, you're smart, and yes, you know a lot more about Scripture and Tradition than I do. But that doesn't change the correctness of Scotju's assessment.

--- Marcus Grodi (director of The Coming Home Network, and host of the EWTN television show: The Journey Home)

I highly recommend his work, A Biblical Defense of Catholicism, which I find to be thoroughly orthodox, well-written, and effective for the purpose of making Catholic truth more understandable and accessible to the public at large.

God bless you in your indefatigable labors on behalf of the Faith! Only God knows how many lives your efforts have touched with the truth. . . . God bless you and give you joy and strength in persevering in your important ministry.

There is someone out there who says what I have to say much better than I ever could -- the smartest Catholic apologist I know of -- Dave Armstrong.

--- Amy Welborn (Catholic author and blogmaster)

I love your books, love your site, love everything you do. God bless you in your work. I'm very grateful for all you've done, and for all you make available. If someone pitches a hard question at me, I go first to your site. Then I send the questioner directly to the page that best answers the question. I know it's going to be on your site.

--- Mike Aquilina (Catholic apologist and author of several books)

People regularly tell me how much they appreciate your work. This new book sounds very useful. Your website is incredible and I recommend it regularly to new Catholics.

--- Al Kresta (Host of Kresta in the Afternoon [EWTN], author of Why Do Catholics Genuflect? and other books)

Dave Armstrong's book A Biblical Defense of Catholicism was one of the first Catholic apologetics books that I read when I was exploring Catholicism. Ever since then, I have continued to appreciate how he articulates the Catholic Faith through his blog and books. I still visit his site when I need a great quote or clarification regarding anything . . . Dave is one of the best cyber-apologists out there.--- Dr. Taylor Marshall (apologist and author of The Crucified Rabbi)

I love how Dave makes so much use of the Scriptures in his arguments, showing that the Bible is fully compatible with Catholicism, even more plausibly so than it is with Protestantism.. . . Dave is the hardest working Catholic apologist I know. He is an inspiration to me.

--- Devin Rose (apologist and author of The Protestant's Dilemma, 28 May 2012 and 30 Aug. 2013)Dave Armstrong['s] website is an amazing treasure trove representing hours–yea a lifetime of material gathered to defend Catholic doctrine. Over the years Dave has gathered the evidence for Catholic teaching from just about every source imaginable. He has the strength not only to understand the Catholic faith, but to understand the subtleties and arguments of his Protestant opponents.--- Fr. Dwight Longenecker (author and prominent blogmaster, 6-29-12)

You are a very friendly adversary who really does try to do all things with gentleness and respect. For this I praise God.--- Nathan Rinne (Lutheran apologist [LC-MS] )

You are one of the most thoughtful and careful apologists out there.

Dave, I disagree with you a lot, but you're honorable and gentlemanly, and you really care about truth. Also, I often learn from you, even with regard to my own field. [1-7-14]

--- Dr. Edwin W. Tait (Anglican Church historian)

Dave Armstrong writes me really nice letters when I ask questions. . . . Really, his notes to me are always first class and very respectful and helpful. . . . Dave Armstrong has continued to answer my questions in respectful and helpful ways. I thank the Lord for him.

--- The late Michael Spencer (evangelical Protestant), aka "The Internet Monk", on the Boar's Head Tavern site, 27 and 29 September 2007

Dave Armstrong is a former Protestant Catholic who is in fact blessedly free of the kind of "any enemy of Protestantism is a friend of mine" coalition-building . . . he's pro-Catholic (naturally) without being anti-Protestant (or anti-Orthodox, for that matter).

---"CPA": Lutheran professor of history [seehis site]: unsolicited remarks of 12 July 2005

Dave is basically the reason why I am the knowledgeable and passionate Catholic I am today. When I first decided in college to learn more about my Catholic faith, I read all of the tracts at Catholic Answers ... but then I needed more. I needed to move beyond the basics. Dave was the only one who had what I needed. I poured over his various dialogues and debates and found the answers to even the most obscure questions. His work showed me that there really is an answer to every conceivable question of and objection to the Catholic faith. That was a revelation for me, and it is one I will never forget. My own apologetical style (giving point-by-point rebuttals, relying heavily on Scripture, and being as thorough as possible) is influenced very heavily by his, and to this day I continue to learn and grow a great deal through his work explaining and defending the Catholic faith.

--- Nicholas Hardesty (DRE and apologist, 28 May 2015)

Dave has been a full-time apologist for years. He’s done much good for thousands of people.

You have a lot of good things to say, and you're industrious. Your content often is great. You've done yeoman work over the decades, and many more people [should] profit from your writing. They need what you have to say.

I know you spend countless hours writing about and defending the Church. There may not be any American apologist who puts in more labor than you. You've been a hard-working laborer in the vineyard for a long time.

I like the way you present your stuff Dave ... 99% of the time.--- Protestant Dave Scott, 4-22-14 on my personal Facebook page.

Who is this Dave Armstrong? What is he really like? Well, he is affable, gentle, sweet, easily pleased, very appreciative, and affectionate . . . I was totally unprepared for the real guy. He's a teddy bear, cuddly and sweet. Doesn't interrupt, sits quietly and respectfully as his wife and/or another woman speaks at length. Doesn't dominate the conversation. Just pleasantly, cheerfully enjoys whatever is going on about him at the moment and lovingly affirms those in his presence. Most of the time he has a relaxed, sweet smile.

--- Becky Mayhew (Catholic), 9 May 2009, on the Coming Home Network Forum, after meeting me in person.

Every so often, I recommend great apostolates, websites, etc. And I am very careful to recommend only the very best that are entirely Catholic and in union with the Church. Dave Armstrong’s Biblical Evidence for Catholicism site is one of those. It is a veritable treasure chest of information. Dave is thorough in his research, relentlessly orthodox, and very easy to read.

Discussions with you are always a pleasure, agreeing or disagreeing; that is a rarity these days.

--- David Hemlock (Eastern Orthodox Christian), 4 November 2014.

What I've appreciated, Dave, is that you can both dish out and take argumentative points without taking things personally. Very few people can do that on the Internet. I appreciate hard-hitting debate that isn't taken personally.

--- Dr. Lydia McGrew (Anglican), 12 November 2014.

Dave Armstrong is a friend of mine with whom I've had many discussions. He is a prolific Catholic writer and apologist. If you want to know what the Catholic Church really believes, Dave is a good choice. Dave and I have our disagreements, but I'll put my arm around him and consider him a brother. There is too much dishonesty among all sides in stating what the "other side" believes. I'll respect someone who states fairly what the other believes.

--- Richard Olsen (Evangelical Protestant), 26 November 2012.

Dave writes a powerful message out of deep conviction and careful study. I strongly recommend the reading of his books. While not all readers will find it possible to agree with all his conclusions, every reader will gain much insight from reading carefully a well-crafted view that may be different from their own.

--- Jerome Smith (Evangelical Protestant and editor of The New Treasury of Scripture Knowledge), 26 May 2015 on LinkedIn.

I think it's really inspirational, Dave, that you pursue your passion and calling in this way, understanding that it's financially difficult, but making it work anyway. You and I don't agree, but I have to respect the choice as opposed to being some sort of corporate sell out that may make decent money but lives without purpose. You can tell your grandkids what you did with your life, whereas some corporate VP will say that he helped drive a quarterly stock price up briefly and who cares? It's cool to see.

Recommended Catholic Apologetics Links and Icons

Protestantism: Critical Reflections of an Ecumenical Catholic

Orthodoxy & Citation Permission

To the best of my knowledge, all of my theological writing is "orthodox" and not contrary to the official dogmatic and magisterial teaching of the Catholic Church. In the event of any (unintentional) doctrinal or moral error on my part having been undeniably demonstrated to be contrary to the Sacred Tradition of the Catholic Church, I will gladly and wholeheartedly submit to the authority and wisdom of the Church (Matthew 28:18-20; 1 Timothy 3:15).

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